Robert R. McCrae talks with ScienceWatch.com
and answers a few questions about this month's Fast Moving Fronts paper in
the field of Psychiatry/Psychology.

Why do you think your paper is highly
cited?

In the past decade, cross-cultural research has become a part of mainstream
psychology, for two main reasons. First, psychologists have been urged to
respect human diversity and to question the assumption that American
college students are an adequate sample of humanity: There is a moral as
well as a scientific imperative to study people everywhere.

Second, cross-cultural research has become much easier than it once was. No
longer is it necessary for a psychologist to learn a new language and
travel to a foreign country to conduct studies; email and the Internet make
it possible to survey the world from the comfort of one's own office (as I
did), and today most nations have psychologists trained in modern methods
of psychological research who can collaborate in multinational projects.

Our paper is widely cited presumably because it includes so large a sample
of cultures, examines the best established model of personality traits, and
has very striking findings. In many respects, trait psychology turns out to
be much the same around the world. What psychologists learned about traits
from American samples actually does apply to most people.

Does it describe a new discovery, methodology, or
synthesis of knowledge?

"Our personality is what we really are at heart, and is it something we
share with all of humanity."

In one respect, this study was a replication and extension of several
earlier, smaller-scale studies that had suggested universality. Using data
already collected by colleagues (many of whom had translated our
personality measure, the Revised NEO Personality Inventory or NEO-PI-R), we
had argued that personality structure was universal: Across such diverse
cultures as Portugal, Israel, and Japan, the same traits clustered
together. For example, people who were sociable also tended to be cheerful
and energetic and assertive, a cluster of traits that defines the factor
called Extraversion. All cultures seemed to have extraverts and introverts.

Other studies had reported cross-cultural similarities in gender
differences (for example, on average, women are almost always kinder and
more sympathetic then men), and in age differences (around the world older
adults are—on average—more careful and organized than young
adults). Our 2005 JPSP paper reported new data collected using
standardized methods in each of 50 cultures, and confirmed most of the
earlier claims of universality.

In another respect, the study used novel methods. Most previous research
had relied on self-reports—asking people to describe their own
personality traits by responding to a series of questionnaire items like "I
am easily frightened." But there are good reasons to be cautious about the
interpretation of self-reports; for example, some men might not want to
admit that they are easily frightened.

In our 2005 study we used a different method: We asked informants to choose
a person they knew well and provide anonymous descriptions of the target's
personality—for example, would they say that "He is easily
frightened?" Observer ratings like these are not perfect either, but they
are a useful complement to self-reports. In our study, we found the same
universal patterns in observer ratings that had previously been discovered
in self-report data. That made it much more likely that the findings were
trustworthy.

Would you summarize the significance of your paper
in layman's terms?

Personality traits endure over many decades and they influence a host of
important life outcomes—health behaviors, vocational interests,
creativity, political views, and much, much more—so the question of
how they are shaped is crucial. Throughout most of the 20th century, social
scientists assumed they were the product of socialization: child rearing
practices, early life experience, and so on. Naturally, they assumed that
different cultures would give rise to different kinds of personalities.

Our research shows that, in some important ways, this is not true: The same
traits appear over and over in the most diverse cultures. Just as people
all over the world have the same cardiovascular system and the same
endocrine system, they also have the same personality system. It's a part
of human nature. This fits in with other findings from behavior genetic
studies that suggest that personality traits and their structure are
somehow encoded in the human genome. Many classic theories of personality
and the theories of psychotherapy they gave rise to need to be revised.

How did you become involved in this research, and
how would you describe the particular challenges, setbacks, and
successes that you've encountered along the way?

"Our paper is widely cited presumably because it includes so large a
sample of cultures, examines the best established model of personality
traits, and has very striking findings."

With my colleague, Paul Costa, I developed a measure of personality traits
over 30 years ago. We conducted our initial research in American samples,
but in the 1990s colleagues around the world took an interest in our
findings and asked if they could translate the NEO-PI-R. At first we had no
idea whether it would be possible to do so, or whether the instrument would
work in different cultures. However, we were happy to assist in the effort
to find out, and over the course of a few years, data from several cultures
became available.

I was particularly interested in seeing whether our findings could be
replicated across cultures, and wrote a series of papers that were
essentially reanalyses of data our international colleagues had collected
for their own projects. When Antonio Terracciano joined our Laboratory, he
and I decided to collect new data from a broader range of nations. With the
help of many talented and generous psychologists around the world (78 of
them were co-authors of the 2005 paper), we launched the Personality
Profiles of Cultures (PPOC) Project.

The PPOC ran more smoothly than we had any right to expect, thanks to the
conscientious and energetic work of our colleagues and to Antonio's
remarkable skill in coordinating the massive data set. Of course, there are
always complexities (should the response scale go from 5 to 1 instead of
from 1 to 5 in languages like Arabic that read from right to left?), and
occasional disappointments. I recall some years ago that a project we had
started in Zimbabwe had to be terminated because of the worsening political
situation there; Zimbabwe was not included in the 2005 paper.

Where do you see your research leading in the
future?

We used data collected in PPOC in a series of other papers, examining such
topics as the mean levels of traits in different cultures (e.g., are
Americans more extraverted than Japanese?), the psychometric properties of
personality scales, and the validity of national stereotypes. The aggregate
(that is, average) scores for each culture have now been published and can
be used by other researchers.

For example, Jüri Allik and colleagues compared self-perceptions with
perceptions by others and found similar trends in 29 cultures; Mark Shaller
has related aggregate personality traits to the prevalence of infectious
diseases. Filip De Fruyt and Marleen De Bolle inaugurated an Adolescent
PPOC which is extending our findings to younger individuals.

Do you foresee any social or political
implications for your research?

In 2005 Antonio published a paper in Science that evaluated the
accuracy of national stereotypes by comparing them to PPOC aggregate
personality scores. The British, for example, are supposedly reserved, but
in fact they are among the most extraverted of peoples (think of British
pubs). Americans are alleged to be much more assertive than Canadians, but
the data do not bear that out. National stereotypes are sometimes good for
a laugh, but they can also be the source of prejudice and discrimination.
This research, which was widely publicized, helped to dispel some of the
myths about national character.

More broadly, the finding that the structure of personality is universal
ought to have an impact on how people around the world think about each
other. Simplistic stereotypes cannot be right, because everywhere we find a
range of personality variation: Some people are ambitious, others are lazy;
some are flexible, others are rigid; some are skeptical, others are
gullible. But the ways in which people differ are always along the same
lines, the universal dimensions of personality. Our personality is what we
really are at heart, and is it something we share with all of
humanity.